Suddenlink Tacks On Gigabit Deployments

Altice USA-owned Suddenlink has launched 1 Gbps (downstream) residential service in three more markets -- Clovis and Texico, N.M., and Farwell, Texas.

The addition of the 1-Gig tier is being accompanied by some free speed upgrades, with customers on 75-Meg and 100-Meg service being bumped up to 100-Meg and 200-Meg, respectively.

The standard Suddenlink residential download speeds in Clovis, Texico and Farwell are now 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 200 Mbps, along with the new 1 Gbps service.

Suddenlink started to offer a DOCSIS 3.0-based 1-Gig service in July 2015 as part of a broader “Project GigaSpeed” initiative that envisioned offering gigabit speeds to 90% of Suddenlink's footprint by 2017. That initiative is continuing under Altice. Suddenlink has been pricing stand-alone 1-Gig at $99 per month.

“Today’s announcement is the next step in Operation GigaSpeed, the company-wide plan we announced in August of 2014,” Brian Borthwick, Altice USA’s VP of Suddenlink operations, said in a statement. “In sharp contrast to other large providers, which are offering a Gigabit service primarily to a few neighborhoods in large urban markets, we’re pleased to be making our Suddenlink Gigabit service available in all of the neighborhoods and to all of the households and businesses we serve throughout Clovis, Texico and Farwell.”

In April, Suddenlink added an unlimited data option for its two fastest tiers in a given market. Those complement the MSO's usage-based plans that charge extra ($10 for an additional bucket of 50 Gigabytes) when customers exceed their monthly limit a third time.